But that wasn't Omega's mission.
They were out here for one reason, and one reason only.
That was to find and destroy the rebel fleet.
Alfx Sheez lay on his back, at the edge of the crowd, staring up at the stars, terrified by the dawn that was soon to come.
He'd been like this for about an hour now. Alternately cursing and praying, fighting off waves of bitterness, not quite believing his life was going to end here, cooked alive on this bastard planet, with a bunch of wretched people he didn't even know. If only he'd been a better person in the past. Would it have done him any good now?
In between battling these emotions, he could clearly see pin-pricks of light moving high overhead.
Were these the last of the refugee ships leaving orbit, heading for destinations unknown? Or were they something else? Oddly, he thought he could see bright flashes of light coming from somewhere near orbit, too, almost as if a space battle was going on up there. And at one point, he swore he saw first one, then two space-ships plummeting through the thin atmosphere, on fire and trailing debris, presumably crashing hundreds of miles away.
Then he began to see all sorts of things flying overhead, way out, moving very, very fast. Different shapes, different colors. In the distance he thought he heard heavy weapons fire, and at first he wondered who the hell would be shooting at the SG. It wasn't like anyone lived on Doomsday 212 and had suddenly decided to protect their planet. It was more likely that the REF had finally turned its weapons on the refugees.
That was the only scenario that made sense.
Another hour went by, and the dawn drew closer. The conditions in the small canyon were getting worse. It was growing very hot. Kids were crying. Some of the adults were, too. Fear was rising among the refugees.
Sheez sat up again and resumed whispering the only prayer he knew over and over again, this while continuously watching the SG troopers up in the peaks. They seemed fanatical about guarding their captives, scanning the mob with high-intensity star lamps and viz-screen rays. They had melted several huge weapons into the rock, with muzzles pointed to the heart of the crowd below. Sheez put it all together and came to one sad conclusion: unless something extraordinary happened, the chances of his getting away now were nil.
He began praying even harder, though it didn't seem to be doing any good.
He'd been resting his eyes, head on his knees, mouthing the words of the petition, when something streaked very low over the small canyon.
It was going so fast and was emitting a noise so loud, it literally shook the dust from the hard ground around them. Sheez immediately looked up but only caught the tail end of the object as it disappeared over the horizon. It appeared as if it was totally engulfed in flame. Was this another starship crashing? Or some kind of natural phenomena? Or something else entirely?
There was no way to tell.
But at that exact moment, the still-darkened sky suddenly became alight with something else. It looked like rain at first, coming down from high up in the very thin sky. Red rain. As everyone had been stirred by whatever had just rocketed over them, everyone in the mob saw this coming, too. Flames, smoke, and now an ear-piercing, hellish scream the likes of which Sheez had never heard before.
Then, just as they were about a thousand feet above them, Sheez realized what these things were.
Fire rocks. The deadly rain of loose particles left over from Doomsday 212 's deteriorating ring, one of the many things that made the planet a particularly hellish place to be. Though these things fell non-stop at the equator, they were much less prevalent up here in the northern hemisphere. Yet a swarm of the deadly boulders was coming down right on top of them, right now.
Or so it seemed.
Just as the fiery volley was about 500 feet over them, there was another sonic blast, and the formation of fire rocks suddenly began to break up. Instead of coming straight down, they began veering off in all directions; even sideways, some of them.
Then, in a vision that seemed like a dream, the fire rocks began slamming not into the mob of helpless people but into the red-suited SG troopers stationed on the peaks around them!
One by one, the soldiers were picked off, almost as if an invisible hand were directing the fiery chunks at the enormous troopers. Sheez watched in astonishment as the string of kinetic explosions went right around the top of the canyon wall. The noise was tremendous. Each fireball strike was blinding. It was so exhilarating and confusing at the same time, some people in the mob started screaming. What was going on here? How could this be? Sheez wondered. Then it hit him: somehow, some way, his prayer had been answered. This was just what he needed.
Without another second of hesitation, he got up and started running.
As he had estimated before, it was at least a 400-yard dash from die edge of the mob to the foot of the ancient ruins. As soon as he took off, Sheez heard some shooting behind him, but he didn't dare turn back to see where it was coming from. He stumbled several times in the waning darkness, badly cutting himself on the hard, rocky ground. But each time he managed to get up, right himself, and start running again.
Somehow he reached the edge of the ruins without having a massive coronary. He was out of breath and his knees were horribly scraped, but he was still in one piece. The ruins turned out to be those of a small settlement. A few dozen structures, made of ancient ion concrete, worn away long ago. But Sheez was hardly an aficionado of the past; he never even broke stride. He kept running through the ruins, up what was left of the main avenue, intent on reaching the summit of the small mountain and hopefully some cover beyond.
It took anotüer few minutes of hard climbing and heavy breathing, but reach the top he did. And on the other side of the mountain, he saw the vast rocky plain that stretched from one horizon to another.
But there were hundreds of thousands of refugees down on this plain, strung out in large clusters along the valley floor, with thousands — of REF troops watching over them. Even worse, there were dozens of REF armed shuttlecrafts flying overhead and even a handful of red Star-crashers hovering just a couple hundred feet off the ground. Sheez was crushed. Any thoughts that the other side of the mountain might provide some refuge were dashed, just like that.
Then Sheez heard a disturbing noise coming from behind him. It was loud and pounding, like a stampede. He turned, certain that he would see a small army of REF troopers running up the hill after him.
But he was in for another surprise. There were people running up the old avenue behind him, but they weren't SG. It was the rest of the crowd, the mob of refugees from which he'd just escaped. They'd seen him make a break for it and had followed right behind him. This was not good. He could see a certain look in the eyes of the first dozen people climbing up to him, and as a politician, he knew that look well. These people had misinterpreted his act of cowardice for one of courage, and now they wanted him to lead them to safety. And that was the last thing Alfx Sheez wanted to do.
The first group of refugees reached the summit and begged him for help, begged him to save them all.
Sheez looked back into the valley before him; there had to be at least 50,000 REF soldiers within sight alone. There was no way he could go down there, alone or with the mob. But he couldn't stay up here, either.
Off to his left, to the north, about a quarter of a mile away, the ridge they were on split in two.
Between the two high grounds was another canyon, this one holding a patch of overhead vegetation, extremely rare on the planet. It was brown and it was dying, but it was also cover from the REF and maybe even the coming heat of day. Sheez thought about simply making a break for this sanctuary alone, but then something stopped him— physically stopped him — as if an invisible hand had taken hold of his chest and was preventing him from moving another step in any direction. The crowd was now bunching up on the hilltop and on the trail below. They were presenting themselves as a huge target. He had no doubt that if the REF saw them, they would simply blast them all away.